The Wall Street Journal December 8, 2003 U.S. Intelligence in Iraq Comes Under Fire From Army, Marines By GREG JAFFE and CHRISTOPHER COOPER Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- New reports by the Army and Marine Corps offering harsh assessments of the military's intelligence capabilities during the war with Iraq are driving demand inside the military to add more intelligence specialists and more unmanned surveillance planes to the force. A report by the Army's Third Infantry Division said there was a "mistaken perception" that Iraqi regular Army divisions would surrender en masse to U.S. forces. "A catch phrase was even coined, which reflected this optimistic view: 'movement to parade,' " the report states. Instead, some Iraqis stood and fought, while the vast majority of them melted away into the population and are believed in some cases to be feeding the guerrilla insurgency. Similarly, a report by the First Marine Division complained that human intelligence was thin and overstretched and that unmanned aerial surveillance planes, which could have helped locate the enemy, were in too-heavy demand. "The division found the enemy by running into them, much as forces have done since the beginning of time," the Marine Corps report says. It said a "Byzantine" intelligence-collections process meant that the division had to rely almost completely on its own devices in collecting battlefield intelligence. The report said one bright spot was the Dragoneye, a small, unmanned airplane used by selected battalions, which can be launched from the battlefield with a bungee cord and could be used to collect intelligence "without interference from higher headquarters." The Marine Corps report also praised the Pioneer surveillance plane, which is the longest serving unmanned surveillance plane in the U.S. military. Both the Army and the Marine Corps reports recommended making unmanned surveillance planes available to lower levels of commanders -- a move that would require the Pentagon to buy dozens more of the surveillance platforms and train many more operators. The front-line units' inability to control the surveillance planes often left the Marine Corps with a "tremendous void in its intelligence collection capabilities at the echelon that needs it the most," the Marine report states. As for reconstruction of Iraq, both the Army and Marine Corps reports said an absence of planning and a lack of civil-affairs troops to assess hospitals, roads and other infrastructure hindered efforts. Army officials say they are rushing to increase the size of the civil-affairs force. One senior Army official said the service expects to double the size of its active-duty civil-affairs force to about 800 soldiers from the current level of 408. It also expects to add about 400 soldiers to the reserve force, which numbers about 5,200. To address the intelligence shortfalls the Army also is planning on adding more military-intelligence specialists. But some in Congress insist that isn't enough. A senior defense official warned that the readiness of units returning from Iraq was likely to slip as soldiers take much-needed time off. Army officials, however, are reluctant to ask for more troops, an expensive move that would likely cut into the service's modernization and maintenance budget. Write to By Greg Jaffe at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and Christopher Cooper at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
